No sooner the word than the deed. Thanks to my school-friend (or should I say Schulfreund) Robert and his brilliant idea, I have spent the past few days adapting my book on AML for NEDs to the international market. Out came all the references to specific pieces of legislation, and in went comments about “international standards” and “global best practice” – and of course the whole point of AML is that this should be possible. If jurisdictions vary wildly in their AML standards, then smart criminals will employ even smarter lawyers to compare and contrast [whoa – scary flashback to “O” level English exams] the different requirements and thus help them steer a due diligence-free path around the world.

What we need, of course, is the global version of the Tolworth Union of Catholic Mothers. Let me explain. When my husband was a boy growing up in Tolworth (on the London/Surrey border), he and his rascally chums used to try to increase their pocket money by saying to their mums, “But Paul/Greg/Peter gets 50p more a week than I do!” What they didn’t realise was that their mums would convene regularly at the school-gates to set the local levels of pay-out – a cartel in sling-backs, if you will. So we need – and, to be fair, we’re getting there, under the stewardship of such agencies as the FATF, the European Commission and Transparency International – global AML standards to ensure that everyone demands and offers the same.

Oh sorry, I got so carried away up there on my soap-box that I forgot to give you the link to the pig in shades, poised with passport in trotter, ready to travel the world. Here he is.

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